Train Train Go Away

Pushing is ok if you have an official looking hat on

Commuting sucks. You can have all the ebooks you want and pretend like its great "me time" to peacefully listen to the same Shins album you've had on your favorites list since 2007, but if it were up to me I'd much rather not be stuck standing next to an emphysematous octegenarian who's making goo goo faces at the bleating infant across the aisle. Knowing that twice a day I have to sardine-pack myself into a throng of potential pickpockets and gropers drives me near to madness, which is why when I was asked to commute out to Bern earlier this week I thought I was in for an extended viewing of my nightmares come to life.

My mission was simple - get out to the Chinese embassy to pick up a visa. Totes mcdoable, I thought to myself as I turned to the internets to find a train schedule. The last time I took a train was in Sri Lanka and it didn't quite go as smoothly as I had hoped, so I approached the trip with cautious optimism. The Swiss rail website lacked the idiot button marked "Schedule" that was going to make my research easy, so it took about half an hour to find out that I was going to have to get the 745am train. This meant a wake up time of 630. I was not pleased.

But I'm a trooper and I thought it might be cool to get out to see Bern, even if only for a few hours. So, after a brief battle with the snooze function on my phone alarm, I made it to the shower and out the door relatively on time. To reward myself for completing the simple task of waking up, I deserved a treat for breakfast - some o.j. and a croissant, methoughts. Ducking quickly into the news stand area I grabbed a bottle of overpriced orangensaft and made my way to the bakery. The second I turned around of course I found a counter with fresh squeezed juices for the same damn price. I was perturbed, but I continued on.

The bakery I was hoping for was actually closed, but off in the distance I saw a sandwich shop type establishment and figured they would have something tasty as well. The guilt of butter ingestion due to my new found veganism proved to be too much, and I couldn't bring myself to break the rules either this early in the morning or this early in the week. As I scanned the options I noticed a theme...every single item had cheese or meat on it! Luckily I'm crafty, so I got the ham sandwich fully intending to remove said ham. Mmmm! Bread! As I headed back to catch my train, I noticed that in the four seconds it took me to get the meat bread, the nice bakery had opened up. I loosed an audible "oh cmon!" and trudged forward angrily.

As I approached the platform, I was struck by how clean, organized, safe and quiet the whole station was. In other words, the complete opposite of Sri Lanka. And, as an added reminder that we were indeed in Europe, there was a small enclosed room marked No Smoking in the middle of the platform. Apparently the rest of the country is a Smoking zone.

Right on time, the train rolled up and I tucked myself into a corner seat to enjoy my meat bread and o.j. The ride was quiet and straightforward. There were no screaming babies and at no point did I fear flying off the tracks. It was, in a single word, uneventful. Granted in a day to day existence, this is exactly the kind of ride you hope for in the morning, but it doesn't exactly make for good television. Such is the problem with Geneva in general - its pretty and boring, just like your downstairs neighbor that always shows up at dinner parties a bit too early. It's definitely a nice reprieve from the insanity of Sri Lanka but it gets old after a while. I suppose when you really think about it, maybe it is in fact better to die of malaria than of boredom.